FOR RUSSIAN DIPLOMATS, DISINFORMATION IS PART OF THE JOB
Techlife News|April 23, 2022
As governments and social media companies have moved to suppress Russia’s state media and the disinformation it spreads about the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s diplomats are stepping up to do the dirty work.
FOR RUSSIAN DIPLOMATS, DISINFORMATION IS PART OF THE JOB

Russian embassies and consulates around the world are prolifically using Facebook, Twitter and other platforms to deflect blame for atrocities while seeking to undermine the international coalition supporting Ukraine.

Tech companies have responded by adding more labels to Russia’s diplomatic accounts and by removing the accounts from its recommendations and search results. But the accounts are still active and are disseminating disinformation and propaganda in nearly every nation, in part because their diplomatic status gives them an added layer of protection from moderation.

With hundreds of social media accounts on every continent, Russia’s diplomatic corps acts as a global network for propaganda, in which the same claims can be recycled and tweaked for different audiences in different nations. And, so far, steps to substantially curtail that effort have fallen short.

“Each week since the beginning of the war these diplomats have posted thousands of times, gaining more than a million engagements on Twitter per week,” said Marcel Schliebs, a disinformation researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University. He has tracked more than 300 social media accounts linked to Russian embassies, consulates and diplomatic groups.

Some Russian embassies, like ones in the U.K. and Mexico, for example, are especially active, churning out pro-Russian propaganda and spreading falsehoods intended to support the invasion.

This story is from the April 23, 2022 edition of Techlife News.

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This story is from the April 23, 2022 edition of Techlife News.

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